Ron Shelp

Had it not been for the current "bailout" which in January 2009 is still playing out I would never have thought of buying this book. It was published in 2006, in -as other reviewers here have pointed out - was a real hurryup year long task just to get it on the shelves. The author is an insider for whom Starr and Greenberg are real heroes and his personal insight is invaluable. If only he could now team up for another edition with a first class institutional historian and a great Wiley editor there could be a terrific bestseller coming up.

What I found most interesting was the way Starr could, as a young America , who did not speak Chinese, go to China, not only found an insurance business, but found newspapers, then move literally all over he world - Latin America, Europe, the Phillipines - and expand the country. With insurance basically a "piece of paper" the company worked in many languages.

Comment from another LibraryThing member

Sorry for the late response. I just saw your message today. Briefly, the story of AIG and Hank Greenberg has yet to be written because it is still an on going story. This book assumed that the SEC and Spitzer overplayed the level of financial manipulation taking place in the company which in retrospect does not sit well with me. Hank certainly built a great insurance company but not a great business. The pre-Spitzer reputation he built was based on earnings coming from the now infamous Financial Products Group which benefited from the run-up in housing prices and unwarneted aaa ratings given to bonds that it insured or collateralized debt obligations (CDS). At the time I purchsased and read this book, it was the only significant work written on AIG. Today, you would be better off doing an online search of articles on the company to get a comprehensive idea of the firm's business rather than reading this book. This book can only give some historical and biograpical perspective on Greenberg and AIG. It is in no way a definitavie written work on the man or the company.
posted by eye2eye at 1:23 pm (EST) on Feb 15, 2009 | reply | archive | delete
Starr also helped out the CIA and interfaced with the arts and philanthropy as did Greenberg.

The insurance business seemed to some how go on and recover through WWII and revolutions all over the world.

In spite of the less than perfect writing this is a facinating story and I end up admiring the author who himself so admired the company and the business.

More from the New York Times about what has happened more recently with AIG

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/business/companies/american_international_...

What has happened to Shelp since the book was published.

Turns out he was a 64 graduate of the University of Georgia. He has had and is still enjoying an active life including developing his own art collection, hence possibly the attention to art in this book. Starr's wife left him for an artist and was an artist herself.

http://www.alumni.uga.edu/alumni/invite/librarypresents/shelp.html

Amazon reviews
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/047191696X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fenco...… (meer)